Bay 12 Games Forum

Upon reflection, Forgotten beasts generally come out pretty pansy. In my latest fortress, both of the ones to arrive (still early days) were killed off single-handedly by my champion, a spearmaster with iron gear. Kinda lame.

FBs (and surface titans, but mostly FBs) are super random in how hard they are to deal with: a steam humanoid that with a venomous bite that causes brief dizziness and mild swelling of the affected area could probably be beaten by a stiff breeze.  A winged, faint yellow diamond blob with deadly dust that causes nearly instant necrosis of the brain, on the other hand, will get into your fortress through a flying-only path you didn't notice and then massacre all your dwarves without doing whatever equates to breaking a sweat for a massive blob of instadeath-spewing diamonds.

So, it has been noted that sometimes dwarves will gain the flashing red-and-yellow "on fire" coloration when exposed to magma... without actually being hurt/killed by it.  They go about their ordinary business, including in at least some cases wading through magma.  In one case, the fortress was saved and reloaded, and the affected dwarf burned normally upon reload.  In the other case, the fortress was abandoned with dwarves still on nonfatal fire.

The proposal here, is for anyone to take on what happens in the second case.

Proposed Setup
Start with a volcano embark, as the previous events have been observed to occur around volcanos.  Gain dwarves (invaders should probably be turned off), then save, copy the save and expose masses of them to magma at a controlled rate.  If dwarves enter the "Everburning" state, one copy of the fortress will be saved and reloaded, to observe if everburning dwarves always become regular burning dwarves in these circumstances.  Another copy will be abandoned with as many dwarves as possible in a confirmed everburning state.  Before abandonment, the names of all everburning dwarves will be noted.

From the abandoned save, Legends will be checked to ensure everburning dwarves are not considered already dead, and if not a new fort will be founded.  Each migrant will have his/her name checked against the list of everburning abandoners until one or more appear.

If the formerly everburning dwarves arrive in their new home healthy, or if they combust normally on entering the map, science is done.

If the formerly everburning dwarves arrive in the "everburning" state, the fort must be saved and reloaded, to establish whether or not dwarves that arrive on the map on fire will combust ordinarily when a save is loaded.  If they do, we can consider science done.

If they do not, however, and remain "burning" and magma-resistant through reloads, a community effort to create, then attract a ‼Monarch‼ may be in order

I might embark on this task myself... but it's a tall order, and I'm not a particular dwarf engineering or science genius

The Dwarven Atomsmasher effect was first discovered by accident, when a tantruming Cheesemaker pulled a lever, dropping a drawbridge on the local baron, who was inspecting it at the time.

Quantum Stockpiling, on the other hand, was the end result of years of storage and hauling research.  It is said that the words that first heralded this monumental discovery were "Why don't we just throw all this [explative] in a pile and be done with it?"

The combination of the two was thereafter inevitable.


Why are dwarven civilizations never commandeered by escaped demons?

hm.  I abandoned with dwarves still on unrecorded fire.  I wonder if I might get burning migrants to future forts, that combust as soon as they enter the map, should I play that world again?

personally, i watch the caravan for metal ORE blocks, like "native gold block" and buy them all.
they dont get used for normal jobs(as far as i have observed) but they DO get used for moods, where the high item value of the metal ore block helps you end up with higher value artifacts

I can't think of any job that uses Blocks where you don't get to select the block you use.  As far as I know, Mason's and Craftsdwarf's workshops don't make anything out of blocks, so they're for constructions or buildings (either Wells and workshops that require them, or any other building if you like)

So it's not just ore blocks that are completley safe.  I regularly buy out the block supply of human and dwarven caravans to get interesting colored constructions in fortresses choked by diorite.

There is no telling that these products were dwarf-made. She might have made them herself or smuggled them. They might have been lying in a depot somewhere as spoils of elf-dwarf warfare. And stick it-to-the-elves furniture in private dwarven homes, but not in the elf populated prison or at the elf-viewed fort entrance? Come on.

You make about a hundred pieces of wood furniature because you've deforested the whole map, haul them all to the depot come spring, and sit atop a mountain of fine wood products as you toss the elves a couple mechanisms for all their sunberry seeds, sunberries, sunshine, and rare and dangerous animals, mocking them while giving no recourse but to hand over their best products for a few stone scraps they can't even use without good mechanics.

And when that's done?  Well you can't offend them the same way next year, as that would be tacky (Maybe you throw their ambassador in jail with a goblin and dwarven criminal who's two inches from cracking, or trade them junk coated in some awful FB's dust if they unload on a tuesday), and you can't throw it into the wood furnace for whatever reason to do clear glass, so it all gets marked down and picked up by dwarves who can't afford proper stone furniture.

Of course, elves abhor dwarf-made wooden products.  The wooden furniture might be the product of a fortress deliberately thumbing its nose at the elves... at which point accusing her of being an elf would be a problem.

At the very least, we need to wait until we get a clear glance at those ears.